The Broken, Yet Stubborn, Man
by KW2009
Summary: ONE SHOT A brief look at a few weeks of Snape's life... R rated for Suicidal themes and language.


A/N: I was thinking about Snape today, and suddenly thought to myself, 'Imagine how much pain Severus Snape would have to be in to try to kill himself'. I had to at least try to write this. One, because if I didn't, I'd end up writing a novel length fic. And two, because I just did.

I know I didn't do Snape justice, which is why I'd appreciate feedback. So, thank you now for any reviews I may receive.

This fic is R for suicidal themes and some language…

I do not own the characters or story or anything, just this little passage of text below.

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**The Broken, Yet Stubborn, Man.**

His nightmares had gotten worse lately. He had been able to accept that he'd never be free of them, and therefore was able to handle the occasional nightmare. But now they had gotten worse, and these nightmares were not so easy to accept.

At least not when you wake up 3 or 4 times a night, in a cold sweat and shaking so much it takes you half an hour to get back to sleep.

And Snape was tired. Half an hour was a long time for someone who was so tired.

He would never admit it, not even to himself, but Severus Snape had his limits. There was only so much emotional, physical, mental and spiritual blows one could take before their mind broke down.

And he knew it was going to happen soon. If this didn't stop, he would crack.

He knew that he could rely on no one to pick up the pieces, that no one cared enough, or looked deep enough to see that he was hurting.

He had accepted that many a year ago.

And Severus refused to acknowledge that he needed someone. Because, even if someone did offer themselves, Severus would never take anything from them.

He had, too, accepted that he was to be alone forever.

And he was happy with that.

But how he would love a reason to stay living…

* * *

She was screaming.

But it wasn't the screams that got to him.

She was bleeding, too. And she was scared, and shaking…

But that didn't rile him, either. No, he was far too used to seeing this sort of thing. There was one thing, however, that he could never bring himself to ignore. One thing he could never take in his stride.

Helplessness.

He was totally, and utterly helpless to help this young girl, who couldn't even be old enough to have started puberty.

She had watched her mother and father being tortured. She had seen her mother crucio'd to insanity. And now her father had to watch as she was viciously raped by men three times her size.

And he could do absolutely nothing to stop it!

Oh how he wished he were never lured to this cause. How he wished he could turn back the clock, and just _see_ that what he was doing was stupid and foolish and immature and just wrong.

But he wasn't so foolish to think that it could have been any other way. He refused to even think of how his life would be if had never taken the Dark Mark.

_He hated James Potter so much. More than he hated his father even. And Sirius Black was just as bad._

_Yet again they had teased and beat him to tears. It wasn't his fault he was already bruised, and that he was emotionally weak from the summer._

_It wasn't his fault he was the way he was._

_And it wasn't HIS fault he had no friends._

_Well, it was, really. But that didn't mean it gave the Gryffindors the right to tease him, to bully him and to just make him feel even smaller and insignificant than he already did._

_He heard a sound and looked up to see Lucius Malfoy walking towards him. _

_His heart sank. It was just his luck that Malfoy should see him this way. Vulnerable, heart broken and alone. His own house had never teased him, but Severus knew that was all about to change._

_He closed his eyes as he put his head down into his knees._

"_Snape?" questioned Malfoy._

_Snape didn't dare move. For all he knew, Malfoy had a huge gang of Slytherins ready to pound him into the ground._

"_It doesn't have to be this way, you know. There is a place, where your life will have meaning, where your services are rewarded. You will have a family, friends… people who care for you, for YOU. I can give you money, power. Power that will soon leave those Gryffindorks bowing at your feet._

He had been a fool. He knew that. The promise of a family, friends, money and power had meant everything. He had nothing, and wanted only what they could give. Who could say no to that?

Dumbledore wouldn't even help him. He had had no choice but to join the Dark Lord.

Malfoy had seduced him… but even if he could turn back the clock, Snape knew that if he had not joined, he would probably not have lived past his Hogwarts years.

But now that the Dark Lord was back, Snape was constantly vulnerable. Which made him even weaker as he hated feeling vulnerable.

The so-called fun he had to witness up the 5 times a week was like pressing salt into already festering wounds. And he wasn't becoming accustomed to it. Not this time. So many years of peace had rocked his walls, and now he was having a hard time rebuilding them.

He had always been a very strong person. He had refused to let any of his demons win. Many a time had Severus thought about ending it all, but that would mean that they had won. His father, the Marauders, Dumbledore… The Dark Lord. It would mean they had won if he gave up and so he had stopped himself from even considering taking the easy way out.

But that ever-present blade kept appearing in his mind, taunting him. The voices in his head kept forcing himself to ask questions.

What did he have to live for?

He had no family, no friends, and no love. His life had no meaning. He hated his job; he hated everyone he associated with. And now he was being forced lower by psychopathic Dark Lords and their followers who found it fun to torture people.

In ways he knew all too well.

His life had taken an all time low, and he didn't know how to fight his way from below the suffocating water he was being pushed under.

* * *

Thirty-five.

That was how many days of torturing he had watched. The number of days he had watched young girls' lives being ripped from their broken bodies.

Forty-six.

The number of times he himself had been tortured since school had let out.

And it was barely August.

He used to be able to take this. He would push everything to the back of his mind and never think on it. It would merely serve as a reminder and a lesson. A reminder of what he had to go back too. A lesson of: never step into things you do not fully comprehend.

The only thing keeping him going right now was the fact that the Order needed him for information, and the students needed him to teach them.

But it was hard to keep telling himself to live for that. The Order despised him. Most of them thought of him as a Death Eater, not a spy. None of them saw the tortured, broken man he was. No, he was just evil.

And the students thought the same.

It was hard to keep giving so much, when getting absolutely nothing in return.

Even Albus was sticking up for him less and less. He suspected that Albus was starting to suspect his true allegiances, which just hurt even more.

And not just because the Dark Lord thought the same. But because at one point, Severus had allowed himself to trust and lean on the man who had saved him from a fate worse than death.

Seeing Albus looking the other way to his pain hurt more than all the torture in his life.

* * *

It was only a week into term and he was already so pissed off he was ready completely destroy his office.

And that place was kept immaculate.

He was walking to his office when he felt the sear of his Dark Mark.

He was being summoned.

The already pissed Snape felt as though he was walking to his death. Surprisingly, or maybe not so, he cared very little right now.

* * *

The ceiling in the infirmary got more and more interesting as he stared at it.

It was rather shocking how a ceiling he had been under many times could have such a hidden beauty.

Or maybe he was just going insane from boredom. Or his thoughts. Either one would suffice.

He had retreated into a very small, very dark, place in his head, where he felt nothing, saw nothing and knew nothing. Where he didn't have to fight vicious Dark Lords hell bent on destroying your soul but not your life, and suspicious father-type figures that couldn't care less if you lived or died.

Life was much easier in this place… but it was taking some effort to stay here. Staring at the ceiling in his trance like state helped him concentrate on staying.

* * *

The few days of refuge he had had felt so far away that he could barely touch them. Oh how he wished he could have stayed there forever.

'You can…'

He forced the voice back. The voice that kept taunting him to do it. Just pull the knife across the skin. It would be over in a flash!

He was stronger than this, damn it! He would NOT let those voices win!

Walking towards his office he realised that his life had become a fight. And that was without being a spy and the most hated person in the whole damn world.

Before he even realised he had done so, he found himself sat at his desk, a glass of Firewhiskey in his hand.

He had vowed to never become the man his father was. To never become the drunk his father was.

But, he had given into temptation once… and once you allow something, it's easy to get into bad habits. .

He noticed a letter appear on his desk… that hadn't been there before, and he most certainly had not put it there.

No, it had to have been placed there, or magically delivered…

But his wards had not been broken. He had wards stronger than the castle itself, or so he liked to think, and he knew that they had not been broken.

The only other option was that someone spelled it to appear at a certain place, at a certain time.

Severus checked the envelope for spells and the results were negative, so he picked up the envelope, opened it and read:

_Snape,_

_I know you didn't mean to do what you did… and I forgive you. I know that you were forced to do it… you didn't want to hurt me. You had too. I understand that, I really do. That's why you were so gentle with me…_

_But you have to know something. While I really hate you for this, I know it is your right to know._

_Voldemort is searching for us, and if we die, I don't want my poor son to be alone his whole life._

_But also, I know that if I were alive, I would never have had the guts to approach you with this._

_So either way, this letter will arrive on the 14th of September 1996 at exactly 6.00pm. Exactly 16 years from now._

_Severus, Harry is not James' son. He's yours. _

_I know this because I was a virgin when you were forced to rape me and I didn't sleep with James until after we were married. Which was only two months before Harry was born. So don't even think about ignoring this letter!_

_He's yours, Severus. Please look after him. _

_I know you are wondering why he looks like James…I couldn't stand the thought of James knowing what happened to me, so I infused his blood with Harry's, as well as their magic, when Harry was only a week old. He truly had my eyes, but he took on James's looks after the magic and blood infusion. The mixture of the two, forces DNA or something, and genetics to change._

_I didn't really understand it. But I had no choice. And Dumbledore said it would work, so…_

_Harry is getting this same letter, now. Neither of you would have been able to read it if the other wasn't reading at the same time, so feel safe in the knowledge that both of you know now._

_I'm sorry…_

_Lily._

Severus' heart had dropped somewhere below his groin, and he was wondering if he would ever get it back to it's correct place.

There were many things that stood out in this letter; but the biggest was that he didn't remember raping Lily.

He would have remembered something like that. Lily was the one person who had given him anything other than hate, and while she never liked him, Severus was so grateful for her.

So why had that memory been removed from his mind? And by whom?

The next was that he had a son, whose life was a complete sham… almost as badly as Severus'. Harry was the son of a Prophecy. And while Severus was sure Harry lived a pretty good life, he knew Harry had seen a lot for someone so young.

The final point was that Dumbledore knew. The man he had thought of as a father had hidden this from him for over 16 years. Severus knew that if he had known Harry was his son, he would have taken him in as his own. At any age.

And the fact that Severus had been denied his own… a light in an extremely dark tunnel… the fact that Albus had lied to him, or at least misguided him…

It pushed him over the edge, and for the first time in 17 years, Severus Snape wept. He wept for his past, his completely fucked up present, for the child he was never allowed to know, for the family he had never had the chance to love and for betrayal of the only man he had ever truly trusted.

* * *

He didn't know how he had gotten to the corridor he was in - looking around, he figured that unconsciously he was walking towards the Astronomy tower - but when he hit something hard and small that gave a squeak, he found himself sprawled along the floor.

He also found he was no longer crying. Fortunately.

He looked to see who he had walked into, and saw the eyes of his son staring back at him with nothing short of pure hatred.

He felt something in his heart pang as he realised that even his son hated him.

Standing up, he stared hard at his son, allowing himself the hope that maybe he could be a father.

But Harry just continued to glare at him.

With a heavy heart, a broken soul and only one thing on his agenda, Snape snappishly told Harry it was beyond curfew and to get back to his bed now.

Before he knew it, he was starring down at the dark floor below him. And he realised he felt nothing. He felt nothing but anger, guilt, loss, shame, hurt… and had no happy feelings or memories. He had nothing to keep him alive. He had nothing to cling onto, no one to turn too. He was a failure, even at being a father! The choices he had made had led to even more wrong choices. The lies he had been told… he could trust no one, not even him self.

And so he pulled at the blade he carried with him at all times, opened it…

But he just stared at it. He refused to do this if he wasn't sure.

But he was. He wasn't in a trance; he was overcome by his feelings and saw no light. He had been waiting for so many years for reprieve. A break in the pain, which had never come. He had been waiting for a reason to not end it, but had just been pushed even further towards the blade!

With tears or bitterness rolling down his eyes, he slid the knife deeply across his wrist, and watched as the blood rapidly bubbled to the surface.

And the thing that hurt the most was that he didn't feel any regret. He was ending his life and he didn't even care.

"Dad?" He stiffened at the voice - squeaked again, but this time with a hint of confusion and hurt intermingled.

And he turned around to see a very upset Harry Potter staring at him in shock.

* * *

Fin.

If someone had the urge to write this into a novel-length, let me know. I'd like to beta it :D


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